Beating terrorism

Further to my post below about the dangerous inanity of those who advocate ‘engaging with’ terrorists Bret Stephens observes, in a must-read in the Wall Street Journal, that the authorities in Iraq, Colombia and Sri Lanka are getting on top of terrorism not by talking to terrorists but through military offensives which destroy them. He writes:

All this is good news in its own right. Better yet, it explodes the mindless shibboleth that there is ‘no military solution’ when it comes to dealing with insurgencies. On the contrary, it turns out that the best way to end an insurgency is, quite simply, to beat it.